40 Interesting Gadgets From Cities Around The World That Should Be Implemented Everywhere

No. But ... quite a lot of these have been around for years, but it took actual years before they became a thing more than just locally. I doubt that this always is to be considered a means to make them safe and prove that in every case - in some, sure may be - but that the less mobility information had in previous decades made it unknown to the rest of the world, although it might have benefitted from it. After all, we all want a traffic infrastructure that is efficient and safe, these are the main goals of any system of that kind anyway ... like, the waiting time on the bus stop. Are a thing in germany since about 20 years, they became common in newly built bus or tram stops roughly 10...20 years ago - almost no new builds without. If you do know you will have to wait 11 minutes, you can go into the grocery store by the bus stop for some well-planned midsize haul, and still get home at the same time, but if you don't know the one before already has departed and the one you wait for is a tad delayed, you will not do so and go out again to buy your stuff. Traffic lights adapting to demand allow the most passages per time without risking accidents. Synchronized schedules of busses, trams and the like reduce waiting time - for something you do daily to get to work, this adds up. I always calculated how long I'd be off home, not how long I am at work, and knowing that I won't need 10 extra minutes for pointless waitery did make the difference that made me decide to use bus and tram every day, and only use the car in case of oversleeping, emergency or other plans, but not as a means to only get myself to work. And so on. I'm also convinced that a highway of 18 lanes inside a city is a major indicator that something may have outgrown something else, and the problems are a lot deeper and harder to uproot than having a bad algorithm on one intersection, or bus stops that somehow suck ... you can easily add those blind peoples' coordination tiles in most places, but an entire city that has grown uplanned, into a size nobody has anticipated when the major decisions were to make, ... is something that will come up in EVERY huge city around the world - a repurposation of many highway lanes, especially in limited-space-areas like cities, will eventually happen, but has to be made possible and feasible before ... of course ... having no public transport that is anywhere near usable, like many US cities, isn't what opens up such options, but closes them off right away. Public transport, on a side note, was being preferred in eastern germany, due to being dependant on imported energy - mainly oil back then, the superior efficiency of a Tram made them a given for every city it could be built within, and many of them work great, still, because they couldn't afford to import all that much oil from USSR, also didn't really have a supply of cars matching the demand, both in regard to number and quality of the vehicles (a Trabant was just a shiddy car ... they used way too much gas for what they offered, their exhaust gases were among the dirtiest of all cars around, and their performance sucked in each, any, every regard), so they resorted to Tram ("Straßenbahn", = Street Train, roughly...). They did it right for the wrong reasons, while in the US ... at least somebody may have had a good intention when deciding on those 18-lane-atrocities ... lobbying may have played a role, too ... so they, kind of, did the wrong for reasons one at least can try to consider being right, ... Anyway, analyzing everything we can, applying whatever is good and matches with the surrounding and removing whatever proved itself being bad, whenever it isn't needed anymore - sometimes, even bad things need a replacement before being taken out of order - should be a standard by now, with hundreds of cities with 6 or 7 figure population, some founded millenia ago, some mere years ago, we should have any and every knowledge and experience we need to at least improve every major flaw we find in urban infrastructure by now. But, the science behind it ... is a bit boring. Playing Sim City is more fun than calculating traffic light period durations, ... sure so ...

Oh! I forgot to add that the electric traffic light was invented in the United States. The first one was installed in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1914. The first three-colored, four-way light was installed in 1920 in Detroit. Los Angeles set up the first automated lights that same year. Computer-controlled lights were set up in Denver in 1952. There’s more, but I’m tired. Have a great day!

All that your comment tells me is that you don’t know much about other parts of the world. Also, do you live in Switzerland? Because that’s the only country in the world that ranks higher in the Global Innovation Index than the United States. If you do, congrats! But it still wouldn’t explain your implication that the only “innovation’ the U.S. has to offer is multi-lane highways. By the way, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but most American freeways are about 4 lanes on each side.